A Candle for Christmas & Other Stories by Reginald Hill

Author:Reginald Hill [Hill, Reginald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2023-09-14T12:00:00+00:00

The Game of Dog

It was Charley Field the landlord of the Punchbowl who started it.

Like his great namesake, Charley didn’t much care for dogs or children. In fact, being a Yorkshire publican down to his tap-roots, Charley didn’t much care for anything except brass, Geoff Boycott, and his own way.

But if the price of getting the brass out of his customers’ pockets into his till was admitting their little companions into his pub, he bit the bullet and said that as long as they didn’t yap, fight, defecate or smell too high, they were welcome in the rather draughty and uncomfortable rear bar.

That was the children. The dogs were allowed in the cosy front snug under the same very reasonable conditions.

One misty October evening, Charley peered through the snug hatch to make sure no one was sitting there with an empty glass and he saw a scene to warm a canophilist’s cockles.

In one corner, a terrier sat with its bright eyes fixed on the face of its owner, who appeared to be dozing. Stretched out across the hearth in front of the glowing fire lay an aged bloodhound, looking as if it were carved out of bronze till the crinkling of cellophane brought its great head up to receive its tribute of barbecued beef flavour crisps. Beneath the window-nook table a Border collie and a miniature poodle were sharing an ashtrayful of beer while above them their owners enjoyed one of those measured Yorkshire conversations that make Pinteresque dialogue sound like a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song. At the table by the door, a small mongrel by dint of crawling around in ever-decreasing circles was contriving to bind the leg of its blissfully unaware owner to the leg of his chair.

This last was Detective Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe, the newest member of this canine club. The mongrel was Tig and belonged to his young daughter. As the nights drew in, he didn’t care to have her wandering the streets even with such a fiercely defensive companion, so he’d taken over the evening walk, whose turning point was the Punchbowl. Observing the bloodhound drooping in behind its owner one damp night, he’d followed suit and over the past couple of weeks had become almost a regular, though he never stayed long enough to exchange more than a polite good evening with the others nor to identify them beyond their dogs.

‘Bugger me!’ said Charley Field after drinking in the scene for a few moments. ‘You lot and your bloody dogs. You’d think you’d given birth to ’em! I bet if there were a fire and you’d only got time to rescue one human being or your dog, you lot would have to think twice!’

‘Nay, Charley,’ said the poodle. ‘If it were thee, I’d not have to think once!’

Before Charley could respond to this sally he was summoned to the bar, leaving the poodle to enjoy the approving chuckles of his fellow drinkers.

As they died away the Border collie suddenly said, ‘Hitler.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’d rescue Floss here afore I’d rescue Hitler, no question.

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